The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep

by H.G. Parry

“You know, Copperfield,” he said, and his voice changed. At once, Millie could hear the grating wheedle of the other Uriah, stronger than before. It was a quotation. She recognized the tone of a character turning without warning into a caricature of themselves. “You’re in quite a wrong position. You can’t make this a brave thing, and you can’t help being forgiven. I’m determined to forgive you. But I do wonder that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be so umble!” Guilt crossed Charley’s face; then, just as quickly, his eyes flashed with anger. “Oh, you want to do chapter forty-two?” he said. “Very well. Here’s chapter forty-two.” He paused, and gathered himself. “‘Heaven knows I write this, in no spirit of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. I do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest—’” The Street heard him, and knew him. It was the only way Millie could describe the shiver in t...